Somehow, someway, the Super Mario 64 speedrunning scene miraculously finds a way to outdo itself time and time again. A three-year-old record was just beaten, by a true expert of the classic platformer who's still finding ways to be the most efficient jumping Italian plumber around.
The record-setter in question here is Suigi, a name you'll be familiar with if you know Super Mario 64 speedrunning at all, and just a few years after he crushed a time for 16 star completion, he's managed to do it again. This go around, he somehow found a way to shave a few seconds off, for a truly astounding finish of 14 minutes and 32 seconds.
"I wasn't done," he says in a post on Twitter. "FIRST 16 STAR WORLD RECORD IN OVER 3 YEARS."
i wasnt done... FIRST 16 STAR WORLD RECORD IN OVER 3 YEARS https://t.co/iDRhEYGs06 pic.twitter.com/Y9DbdjygMGJuly 3, 2026
The record prior was 14 minutes and 35 seconds, set in March 2023. While this mightn't seem like a huge jump, when you're talking about relays this small, even getting a full second lower is an achievement. Suigi's leapfrogged significantly more than that.
It mightn't shock you to hear he beat his own record in March 2023 as well. A dominant force when it comes to Mario's big out on the Nintendo 64, Suigi is top of the leaderboards on speedrun.com for every major, full-game category on the platform.
Outside of 16 star, those are 120 star, 70 star, one star, and zero, and Suigi's the man to beat across them all. Again, these are all on native hardware as well, in this instance on Japanese copies of the game as they're the fastest in terms of loading times and text and the like.
In speedrunning, every little helps. Seeing this, I have to wonder how long it'll be before the threshold of 14 minutes and 30 seconds will be reached. It might be a while considering the minute ways runs can be tightened further, but I wouldn't discount Suigi at all. Let's reconvene in three years and see where we're at.
